A standing-room only crowd greeted a lecturer whose presentation at Guilford College on Tuesday was relocated over some controversial remarks.
Steven Salaita, an Arab-American and indigenous studies scholar, had originally been scheduled to speak at the school’s Frank Family Science Center.
However, concerns were raised over some tweets he sent out criticizing Israel, and critics accused him of being an anti-Semite.
A member of the Frank family, who are Jewish and the namesake for the college’s science center, asked for his lecture to be moved.
Salaita wound up speaking at the college’s Hege Library.
About 60 plastic chairs were set up in the center at the library’s Carnegie Room, with about two dozen more chairs set up around the perimeter. Those quickly filled and by the time Salaita spoke, a number of attendees were sitting on the floor, with many crowded into an area adjacent to the room.
During his roughly hour-long lecture, Salaita insisted he is not an anti-Semite, and said that such criticisms are simply a way to deflect from what he feels are legitimate criticisms of Israel.
“Rather than focusing on a critique of Israel or analysis of human rights, we descend into these discussions that revolve around invented cults of personality,” he said.